Academic Success NSE Presentation

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05/07/2025 Added

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[00:00:00.000]Hi there. My name is Rob Russell. I'm the director of the CAST office here at Nebraska,
[00:00:06.900]the Center for Academic Success and Transition. And I'm going to talk to you for the next few
[00:00:11.340]minutes about academic success here, what it looks like, and then give you some ideas
[00:00:15.520]for some things to think about this summer as you head into the school year this coming fall.
[00:00:20.640]Okay. Now here's how I'm going to start. Really, really simple analogy, but something to really get
[00:00:25.940]us in the right direction. All right. Think of an apple. Boom. There we are. Right. Everyone's
[00:00:34.200]seen an apple at some point. How do we eat an apple? We pick it up and we take a bite, right?
[00:00:38.240]That is one of many ways, but typically how most of us are going to eat an apple. Okay. Now I want
[00:00:43.840]you to think of an orange. Boom. An orange, right? We do not eat an orange the same way. We don't
[00:00:51.200]pick it up and take a bite out of it. No shame if you do, I suppose, but most of us are either
[00:00:55.780]going to cut it into slices or peel the rind to get to the inside, right? Now here's the analogy.
[00:01:01.320]These are both pieces of fruit, and yet they're approached very, very differently. And today,
[00:01:07.120]what my goal is to get you thinking about how different college is going to be from everything
[00:01:13.340]you've already known in regards to your education. Everything you've done up to this point is an
[00:01:19.120]apple, and there are going to be some parts of that that you recognize as your educational process here in college,
[00:01:25.620]but it's going to be approached very, very differently in Orange. And I'm going to repeat
[00:01:29.460]this a few times today. My job here is to get you thinking about college. I don't want to take away
[00:01:35.680]any of your achievements. You deserve all of those things, but what you did to be successful
[00:01:40.860]in high school does not guarantee success in college for a couple key reasons, right? And
[00:01:46.140]we'll get into that today. So the first thing I want to remind you about and talk about is this
[00:01:52.400]power acronym that you may have seen here and there. We refer
[00:01:55.460]to this as the Husker Power Framework, and it's something that throughout your time at UNL and
[00:01:59.100]especially during NSE, you're going to be learning a lot more about. It stands for purpose, ownership,
[00:02:04.020]well-being, engagement, and relationships. And this is a way for us to help students sort of build
[00:02:10.260]good habits, the right mindset, and give them strategies they need to lead to academic and
[00:02:16.300]personal success. Now, we're just going to talk about the O today, which is ownership, and that's
[00:02:20.680]really everything we're talking about today is going to be distilled down to taking ownership of your education
[00:02:25.300]because that really is the biggest difference, right? It's not apples to apples, it's apples to
[00:02:30.180]oranges. You are going to be responsible for your learning, your time, all the choices you make,
[00:02:36.540]how you engage with things to a level that most of you have never had to do before, and it is going
[00:02:43.740]to feel overwhelming. It is 100%, but part of my job today also is to remind you that you're not
[00:02:49.200]doing it alone, right? When you take ownership of your experiences here at Nebraska, you are
[00:02:55.140]taking ownership and control of your success, and it starts with showing up, but you're not here to
[00:03:02.960]do it alone, and you're not going to do it alone, right? So what does that look like? Well, we have
[00:03:08.040]a broad ecosystem of support here at Nebraska, and so many resources to help you succeed. These
[00:03:13.760]are just a few of them that I have on the screen right now. Your academic advisors, peer mentors,
[00:03:18.500]career coaches, academic navigators, success coaches, like the office that I'm a part of, CAST,
[00:03:24.980]has for you. Tutors, instructors, professors, there's a bunch of resources on campus, and their
[00:03:31.500]job is to make sure that you succeed. Now, you'll notice the arrows are pointing towards the student.
[00:03:37.140]The reality is, and part of that ownership we're talking about, is I want you also to think about
[00:03:42.260]the arrows going the other way as well, too, that you have to take that first step. Now, another
[00:03:47.140]analogy that I love giving students is this net analogy. In high school, if a student were to fall through a net theres
[00:03:54.820]always someone else to scoop them back up, right? And if they fall through that net, there's always someone
[00:03:59.380]to scoop them back up. A good way to think about it is if a student missed two weeks of class in
[00:04:04.000]high school, you better believe someone would be trying to find them, right? In college, those nets
[00:04:10.440]are sort of all over the place. And you actually have to go to them. It is your job to use those
[00:04:15.760]resources. And I am not suggesting you do this. But if you were to skip class for two weeks,
[00:04:21.040]especially a really large lecture class, the reality is,
[00:04:24.660]nothing's going to happen to you. Your professor is not going to reach out.
[00:04:27.320]In fact, there's a really good chance that nobody's going to know that you weren't there.
[00:04:30.760]However, the person affected by that and the only person that it matters to is you. It is
[00:04:36.240]your education. You have not missed out on two weeks worth of content. And it's very hard to
[00:04:41.400]make that up, right? So that's why taking that first step is a really, really, really important
[00:04:46.640]part of your journey. And to benefit from these resources, it's a necessary part of your journey.
[00:04:52.260]And I'm going to say something now that's pretty
[00:04:54.500]crass, but I really like to say it. I am, like most of the people here, salaried employees,
[00:05:00.960]which means that if I see one student or I see 10 students, I get paid exactly the same.
[00:05:06.260]That also means if I see zero students, I get paid exactly the same. Your money and your fees
[00:05:11.600]go to pay for services like the CAST office to exist. And it's really important that you drop
[00:05:18.100]any ego or pretense that you might have about asking for help and do those reach outs. Now,
[00:05:23.640]in high school,
[00:05:24.340]the reality is it's incredibly competitive, more so than it should be. And if you needed extra help
[00:05:30.720]for a class, there's a really good chance you wouldn't broadcast that information because you
[00:05:35.880]might be embarrassed. Now, I wish it wasn't that way, but that's the way it is. In college,
[00:05:40.240]nobody cares. Everybody's busy. If you go to a lecture hall of 100 people, you're not going to
[00:05:45.280]care if the person next to you did the reading or not because you're more preoccupied whether you
[00:05:49.380]did the reading or not. That's the reality. So if you don't understand something and you're too afraid
[00:05:54.180]to ask for help, again, the only person affected by that is you, right? So now that you understand
[00:06:02.620]this network that's here to support you, I want to sort of bring up some examples of reasons
[00:06:08.620]why students seek out support in the first place, right? Many times students come to us,
[00:06:15.560]yes, the CAST office, but any of those other offices that I mentioned today,
[00:06:19.860]when they're feeling overwhelmed and uncertain if they're not sure which direction to go
[00:06:24.020]forward, they might be feeling overwhelmed, any of the things on this list here, the reality is,
[00:06:30.280]and I think this is a really important part to bring up, is that every single one of you is
[00:06:34.640]going to feel this. And I think college students have this tendency to think that, oh, it's just
[00:06:37.880]me. I'm the only one that doesn't feel prepared. Everybody else is smarter than me. Every single
[00:06:42.800]one of you has these thoughts, right? Now you'll notice on this page, I have the text, I'm just
[00:06:47.880]really overwhelmed, really, really big. That's because that happens to every single student
[00:06:53.860]here, right? We want to think of this list as a sort of greatest hits collection of issues that
[00:06:59.660]students face. And the reason why that's in the middle is because every single student,
[00:07:03.780]every single student is going to feel overwhelmed. It's a matter of when, not if. The difference
[00:07:09.600]between success and not having success is what do you do when that happens? Do you know what
[00:07:15.960]resources are available to you to help pull you out and pull you back up, right? Some of the
[00:07:20.420]other ones that I want to focus on very briefly, I don't know how to study is
[00:07:23.700]also a big one. What you did in high school, I mentioned this earlier, does not necessarily
[00:07:28.000]guarantee success in college today. And you really are going to have to reinvent what it
[00:07:32.260]means to learn, to study, and to be ready for classes. And the other one I want to mention
[00:07:36.980]is I'm falling behind in classes. Welcome to college. It's going to happen. Even if you are
[00:07:41.820]doing really well in a class, there's a really good chance you're going to fall behind because
[00:07:46.340]there is going to be so much happening to you. And until you really experience it, it really
[00:07:53.540]is hard to understand how much is going to be happening and how much change to you is going
[00:07:58.060]to be happening even in your first semester. So some of you might have taken college classes in
[00:08:03.040]high school and that's great, but there really is a difference between that versus being a full-time
[00:08:07.420]college student. Now, the one area I will say, I mentioned that everybody feels overwhelmed and
[00:08:13.140]falls behind in classes. Absolutely. But even more than that, the area where every single student
[00:08:18.140]falters, no matter what, is time management or understanding how different the structure
[00:08:23.380]of learning is in college compared to high school. So let's take a minute to see what
[00:08:28.240]that looks like, okay? So if we think about high school learning and we imagine that this is your
[00:08:34.180]schedule, your teacher leads the learning. That's a really important first part. Your teacher leads
[00:08:38.700]the learning. And 80% of what you have to learn happens in the classroom, right? So that big
[00:08:44.120]yellow block right there represents 80% of what you have to learn, which means that 20%, is on your own. High school comes with that
[00:08:53.220]structure and built-in reminders, daily check-ins and reminders. You have more face time with your teacher. There's
[00:08:59.600]also a reality you might do readings together. You might review for tests together, right? Now,
[00:09:04.460]whenever I have this conversation with students in classrooms here, I will ask,
[00:09:09.520]how many of you barely studied for exams? I'll get some hands. How many of you had exams in
[00:09:14.920]high school that you didn't study for, but still did well? And I'll get some hands. And the reality
[00:09:19.180]is, it's not because you, if this is you,
[00:09:23.060]it's not because you magically willed yourself to understand it the day before or the day of,
[00:09:27.920]it's that your teacher was very sneakily teaching you all of this material. They were leading this
[00:09:33.280]learning. So even if you only studied for two hours the night before a test, you already actually
[00:09:38.860]learned it. And at that point, you were just reviewing it. And that's sort of the magic of
[00:09:42.480]what high school teachers do. Now, let's compare this to what college looks like.
[00:09:46.900]Very, very different, right? There's a really big shift, and it's very, very clear.
[00:09:51.580]First of all, your professor guides the learning. Their job is to lob as much information at you as they can. Your job is to take it, do something with it, right? 80% of the learning happens outside of the classroom. So when you see a schedule like this, that represents only 20% of what you have to do.
[00:10:08.720]You also have to create your own structure. There's fewer reminders. Some professors never remind you, and you have a lot more responsibility. Now, I've done this for a really, really long time, and every single college student, when they make their schedule for the first time, has the exact same reaction, right?
[00:10:27.880]Oh, my God. Life is so amazing. Of course it is. I can take naps all day. I can play video games. I can join every intramural league. I can see my friends whenever I want to.
[00:10:37.880]But again, this is only 20% of what you have to do. It is not representative of what your college experience is going to be like. Realistically, it's going to look more like this, okay?
[00:10:48.140]And that is maybe the biggest thing that you need to take away from today. It's apples and oranges, right? You are responsible for your education and what happens outside of that classroom.
[00:10:58.600]If you just go to class and do nothing else, you will fail classes, period, because you're not doing the work necessary to keep up with everything, right?
[00:11:06.540]Now, even if you're not working, even if this is your schedule and you're not working, that is still a lot of time, and it's important to remember that baseline, you're going to be very busy in college.
[00:11:16.140]Now, this is a study schedule, the type of thing that people like myself and my staff in the CAST office, we will actually help build these with students, and if every single one of you watching this came to see us in the CAST office to help build a study plan once, you would be in a better place.
[00:11:33.960]This is a big part of
[00:11:35.960]your first semester of college is understanding what time management looks like and what you need to do, and it really is about taking ownership.
[00:11:43.900]If we look at this schedule with all the stuff on it, those aren't optional things.
[00:11:49.340]These are things you have to do for class, right?
[00:11:51.620]And it's taking ownership and deciding, am I going to do this the day before it's due, or am I going to do it right before class with my back against the wall and be super, super stressed, right?
[00:12:00.200]And again, back to that level of ownership that's really needed.
[00:12:02.700]So all of the people I mentioned earlier...
[00:12:05.900]This is the CAST office, right?
[00:12:10.200]This is, we are part of your success network.
[00:12:12.820]Again, there's that whole ecosystem, but we're a key component in that network, right?
[00:12:18.540]When you are feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, and stuck, you can come see us.
[00:12:22.000]And we're a pretty small office, but we serve the entire, entire campus.
[00:12:26.340]And I cannot stress this enough, we are not just for your first semester on campus.
[00:12:30.460]Whenever you need our help, we are here for you.
[00:12:33.940]How you're going to...
[00:12:35.360]How and why you're going to be successful in your first semester of college does not
[00:12:39.180]guarantee success your second semester of college or your second year of college, right?
[00:12:43.480]How you're going to be successful in an English class does not guarantee success in a physiology
[00:12:47.600]or chemistry class, right?
[00:12:48.980]So that is where we come in.
[00:12:51.960]Now, predominantly what we do, you know, we take everything from an academic skill baseline.
[00:12:58.700]Like we're talking about academics in our office and things like time management, study
[00:13:02.300]skills, reading and note-taking, critical thinking,
[00:13:04.820]test prep, connecting to resources.
[00:13:07.100]Absolutely.
[00:13:07.720]But we also talk to students about transition to college and life after graduation and daily
[00:13:13.600]stressors and adulting and all that kind of good stuff.
[00:13:16.780]And it's the combination of these things that makes our job really, really unique, right?
[00:13:21.740]And we refer to this as holistic support because you can't really have one without the other.
[00:13:25.600]If you're doing really well academically, fantastic.
[00:13:28.760]That's fantastic and great.
[00:13:30.920]And we love that.
[00:13:31.620]But the second you have financial stress or you lose a job.
[00:13:34.800]Or you're having roommate issues or you're having car issues.
[00:13:38.160]This stuff will affect your academics, right?
[00:13:40.200]So it's really, really important that we understand there's a connection between your personal life and your academic life, right?
[00:13:48.260]So predominantly what we do, the bread and butter of our office, so to speak, is academic success coaching.
[00:13:55.800]One-on-one academic and personal support.
[00:13:59.680]We identify challenges with you.
[00:14:02.720]You set the tone for what you want to talk about.
[00:14:05.440]But our job is this holistic support of you individually.
[00:14:08.640]What do you need to be as successful as you want to be?
[00:14:12.840]And I want to clarify again, we are not your professors.
[00:14:15.420]We are not therapists.
[00:14:17.180]We are not your advisors.
[00:14:18.800]We're somewhere in the middle there, which is a pretty great place to be because that means that we can really help you navigate the system and figure out, okay, you need to do this well in class.
[00:14:28.880]Let's figure out how to get you there.
[00:14:29.980]Okay, you're falling behind on reading or you feel like your note-taking is not good and it's affecting your work in class.
[00:14:34.700]Let's figure out a strategy to get you back on track.
[00:14:37.120]Okay?
[00:14:37.800]We also offer study stop tutoring.
[00:14:41.700]This is free peer tutoring, Monday through Friday, 8:30 to 4:30 in our office.
[00:14:46.720]We have specific offices for you and your tutor to meet.
[00:14:49.100]It's open to every single UNL undergrad.
[00:14:51.760]And I mentioned this earlier.
[00:14:53.440]I'm going to mention it again.
[00:14:54.660]It is very, very important that you drop any ego or pretense you have about asking for help.
[00:14:59.900]If you do not understand what's happening in math class,
[00:15:02.760]it's going to be very hard to just magically will yourself to understand it.
[00:15:06.480]It doesn't really work like that.
[00:15:07.660]So resources like us exist to help you.
[00:15:11.780]And it's free.
[00:15:12.800]It's absolutely free.
[00:15:13.880]Now, we are one of many free resources on campus.
[00:15:16.800]There's the Writing Center.
[00:15:18.020]There is the Language Lab, the Chemistry Resource Center, the Math Resource Center.
[00:15:23.580]So many resource centers that exist just to help you.
[00:15:26.720]It doesn't matter what you use, but it is really important that you understand,
[00:15:30.280]okay, I thought I understood.
[00:15:32.680]I understood the subject.
[00:15:33.280]I don't.
[00:15:33.980]I'm going to go ask for help.
[00:15:35.320]And again, that is taking ownership for your support.
[00:15:39.360]Finally, we offer various academic resources on our website.
[00:15:44.860]We have a first six weeks checklist that we offer that distills down everything that's
[00:15:48.900]going to happen to you in the first six weeks into very easy to read bullet points and nothing
[00:15:52.520]gets missed.
[00:15:52.980]We have key vocabulary and UNL acronyms because there's a lot of information about campus
[00:15:57.420]resources.
[00:15:57.920]We have various handouts about academic skill building and whatnot as well, too.
[00:16:02.580]So we have lots of really fantastic stuff on our website.
[00:16:04.860]And our website is success.unl.edu.
[00:16:08.940]And I'll show you that again in just a moment.
[00:16:11.080]Now, the final thing I'm going to say is give you information about our CAST Power program.
[00:16:16.920]Some of you are going to be talking to advisors about scholarship seminars involving CAST
[00:16:22.700]or the CAST Power program.
[00:16:23.960]These are programs designed for those two buckets of students where you take a seminar
[00:16:29.360]class taught by us.
[00:16:30.700]It's really like a homeroom style class.
[00:16:32.480]It's zero credits, 12 weeks.
[00:16:34.540]It's not even a full semester.
[00:16:35.700]We meet once a week.
[00:16:36.600]And it's a homeroom style class designed to talk to you about your why.
[00:16:39.780]Why are you here?
[00:16:40.640]What can we do to help?
[00:16:41.800]What resources are available to you?
[00:16:43.360]Now, in part of that, we have a four-day available.
[00:16:46.620]We call it our four-day foundational event, which is like a summer camp where you move
[00:16:50.300]to campus early on Sunday, August 17th.
[00:16:52.660]And for the next four days, we put you with a group of students.
[00:16:55.200]You get to know peer mentors.
[00:16:56.600]You get to know those students, campus resources.
[00:16:58.840]You run errands.
[00:16:59.620]You will know campus upwards and downwards, left.
[00:17:02.380]And right, you'll know it as well as anybody else is ever going to know it.
[00:17:06.120]It's a really, really fantastic experience.
[00:17:08.040]And those students that you're paired with during those four days,
[00:17:10.860]we put you in the classroom with that same group of students.
[00:17:13.860]So when class starts that first week of August,
[00:17:17.380]you will have the same group of students that you've gotten to know already.
[00:17:20.060]And it makes things really relaxed and really fun.
[00:17:21.880]Now, I'm bringing this up because we also have space for first-gen students.
[00:17:26.000]If you are a first-gen student, which means that your parent or guardian
[00:17:29.440]did not graduate from a four-year institute,
[00:17:32.280]we saved 200 spots for this four-day experience for you.
[00:17:36.780]All of this is completely free.
[00:17:38.780]You sign up on our website, success.unl.edu.
[00:17:42.660]It's called the CAST Power Program.
[00:17:44.300]And that specific section of it, it's called the First Husker Program.
[00:17:47.680]You sign up for it.
[00:17:49.100]We put you in a cohort of students that are first-gen just like you.
[00:17:52.600]And all the other stuff I mentioned, you get that as well, too.
[00:17:55.280]We introduce you to campus resources.
[00:17:57.140]You get to meet other students outside of your dorm.
[00:17:59.280]It's a really, really fantastic experience.
[00:18:02.180]More information on our website about that.
[00:18:04.520]Now, to wrap things up, some homework.
[00:18:07.140]Not really, because I know you're all in super summer brain mode right now, but I want you
[00:18:12.260]to be thinking about a few things here, right?
[00:18:14.040]Predominantly, I want you thinking about how you can ask for help when you get here.
[00:18:18.380]And again, the CAST office, the navigators, your advisor, tutoring, it doesn't really
[00:18:23.260]matter, but you do need to make sure they're asking for help.
[00:18:26.580]Now, I would love it if all of you would meet with someone from the CAST office to help
[00:18:30.780]create a study plan at the start of the summer.
[00:18:32.080]It's a great way to ensure success right away, but also make sure you get in the habit of
[00:18:36.640]checking your email regularly.
[00:18:38.020]Cannot recommend that enough.
[00:18:40.640]It is how all of us get in touch with you, right?
[00:18:42.860]Make sure you understand where some of these resources are.
[00:18:45.580]If what I just mentioned in the last slide applies to you, sign up for one of the CAST
[00:18:50.160]power programs.
[00:18:51.000]If you have any questions on the CAST power program or any of the services we offer, you
[00:18:56.380]can go to our website and you can email me about that, okay?
[00:19:00.020]Now, this QR code will take you to our website.
[00:19:02.080]You can also follow us on social media.
[00:19:04.520]The last thing I'll say real quick is you do not have to be in crisis to come to the
[00:19:09.600]CAST office or any academic resource on campus.
[00:19:12.880]We're here to help you think things through, to help create clarity, to give you direction,
[00:19:19.040]to give you momentum.
[00:19:20.160]That's the job.
[00:19:21.040]I really like talking about leveling up.
[00:19:23.140]And that's really what our office and other academic success units like us do.
[00:19:27.300]Our job is to help you level up and connect the dots and move forward with confidence
[00:19:32.000]If you have any questions about anything I said today, please feel free to reach out
[00:19:36.560]and welcome to Nebraska.
[00:19:37.820]...
[00:19:38.060]...

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